Sunday, June 14
·
Recap
of the Week – Black Lives Matter protests
o
COPS is “that show your dad falls asleep to”
o
I
loved the note that Google Maps updated the location of a Christopher Columbus statue
after protesters threw it in a lake – “Because, unlike Christopher Columbus
himself, Google knows how to read a fucking map”
o
But
despite tangible changes, John acknowledged that we still have a long way to go (cue Joe Biden still
vowing to put more money into
policing)
·
And
Now This – C-SPAN callers talking about COVID-19
·
Main Story – Facial recognition
o
Tangentially
tied to the protests, since there are concerns about police applying facial
recognition software to pictures/videos of protesters to identify them
o
It’s
why John’s phone won’t unlock until it sees his face, “or the face of any
toucan!”
o
Man,
that Russian app “Find Face” was horrifying – talk about a stalker’s
playground! :shudder:
o
It’s
so gross that the issues facial recognition software has with recognizing
people of color have been brought up consistently, but no one seems to have any
urgency about correcting that (let alone stop letting law enforcement use it
until after it’s corrected)
o
John’s
right – “White guy, no problem” is “the unofficial motto of history” Meanwhile,
Black and Asian faces are 100 times
more likely to be incorrectly matched than white male faces
o
Looking
at a quote about how long Google held off
on studying facial recognition due to privacy concerns/potential abuses, I appreciated
John’s remark that it was deemed “too Pandora’s Boxy for Silicon Valley,” no
small feat
Sunday, June 14
·
Main Story – The Cost of College
o
When
COVID-19 hit and colleges closed, “In an instant, childhood bedrooms became
dorms, moms became cafeteria workers, and Econ. 101 looked like The Brady Bunch fucked Don Lemon’s show”
– and yet, most students aren’t getting any refunds on tuition or room and
board
o
Hasan
noted that “the downside of not having a degree is getting worse” – in addition
to an increasing share of livable-wage jobs being reserved for college
graduates, people without college degrees have a considerable higher rate of
suicides and opioid deaths
o
Great
line – “You’re not rewarded for getting a degree, it’s kind of expected. But
you’re definitely penalized for not getting
a degree”
o
Ballooning
tuition and fees have been coupled with an increasing number of classes being
led by adjunct professors and TAs who are paid far less than tenured professors
and receive no benefits – as Hasan said later in the episode, “This isn’t the
playbook of an academic institution. It’s the playbook of a corporate
institution”
o
Great
comment in response to police who roughed up a TA striking for better
compensation – “Why are the police wearing riot gear? What is Ben gonna do,
attack you with specific examples from the text?”
o
Harvard’s
$40 billion endowment is worth more than the GDPs of half the world’s
countries, or “more than the economies of the countries destroyed by its
alumni”
Monday, June 15
·
Main Story – Rayshard Brooks shooting
o
Another
Monday, another police killing – major props to Trevor for his always-honest,
always-insightful commentary
o
I
appreciate it that Trevor never ignores or downplays instances when the victim
did break or may have broken the law – instead, he allows it to be, as he said,
“messy and imperfect” while still emphasizing that the broken law was “a law
not worth dying for”
o
Riding
on the wave of the Defund the Police discussion, he said, “Why are armed police
dealing with a man sleeping in his car?”
o
I
really liked Trevor’s repeated emphasis on the fact that Brooks was drunk,
asking how we can expect a drunk person to behave in a correct/logical manner
and not instead count on the sober, trained police officers to handle the
situation without escalating it
o
He
addressed the perennial refrain, “If you didn’t do that, you would still be
alive,” with the “ifs” ranging from “didn’t resist arrest” to “didn’t wear a
hoodie” – “the common thread,” he noted, was, “If you weren’t Black, maybe you
would still be alive”
·
Headlines
– Supreme Court upholds LGBTQ workplace protections, Black Lives Matter
protests, Trump’s upcoming Tulsa rally
o
Trevor
noted Pride month’s inauspicious start, what with “J.K. Rowling [trying] to do
what Voldemort couldn’t and destroy Harry Potter” with her insistence on
spouting transphobic views
o
In
response to the Trump administration eroding protections for trans people in
the middle of a pandemic and protests
against police brutality, Trevor simply asked, “How much hate does one person
need?”
o
I
loved Trevor’s response to Trump’s claim that holding a rally on Juneteenth
would be “a celebration” – “Is this dude trying to gentrify Juneteenth?”
o
The
aptest description I’ve ever heard for a Trump rally – “a boxing match between
a man’s mouth and his brain”
·
Interview
– Activist/author Stacey Abrams
o
Abrams
did not mince words about how things
have gone down with COVID-19 – “Essential workers were the people we weren’t
protecting, but we demanded their obeisance to our neds anyway”
o
She
warned against letting the current fire for change “dissipate,” succumbing to
the “numbness” of the allowing “the system to continue the way it’s been
designed”
o
In
discussing the Georgia primary, Trevor observed that some Republican-heavy
precincts suffered the same suppressive conditions that the Democrat-heavy
Black and brown precincts did – Abrams responded, “When you break the machinery
of democracy, you break it for everyone”
·
Interview
– Musician Alicia Keys
o
As
others have in recent weeks, Keys called systemic racism “the most major
pandemic of all”
o
Trevor
acknowledged that “part of the journey of being a Black person is living
between two states, pain and joy,” and so they discussed both her new song
about police violence and her upcoming “piano battle” against John Legend,
which Trevor delightedly called “the most highbrow hood thing that I’ve ever
heard of”
Tuesday, June 16
· Headlines - Trump’s police-reform executive order, clash over a conquistador statue, progress for Band-Aids in multiple shades and access to Black beauty
products
o
Good
line – “Having a gun means giving every tense situation the potential to end in
death.” Trevor then asked us to imagine being armed during a Monopoly game.
“It’s gonna turn into a Tarantino movie!”
o
I
loved Trevor using Ghostbusters as a
metaphor for defunding the police, with the Ghostbusters as a special unit
created for a problem that the police weren’t best-equipped to handle
o
I
laughed at Trevor wondering who the armed militia were in New Mexico stanning a
16th-century conquistador – “Why can’t they be obsessed with Beyoncé
like a normal person?”
o
Walmart
has promised to stop keeping Black beauty products in locked cases – I loved,
“Even Black hair products suffer from mass incarceration!”
·
Correspondent Piece (Jaboukie & Michael) – How white people can fight for racial justice
o
Given
how white people are normally all over Black trends, Jaboukie couldn’t figure
out why it took them so long to get behind Black Lives Matter
o
Jaboukie’s
secret weapon to get Michael to move beyond performative symbols and really
drive action for change? Telling him that the police kill hundreds of dogs every year
·
Interview
– Sen. Tim Scott
o
I
appreciated Trevor bringing up the fact that Scott, the one Black Senate
Republican, has been called a token for drafting a police-reform bill. I mean,
this is a Republican bill – who would people have rather seen writing it, Ted
Cruz and Mitch McConnell?
o
Scott
discussed sharing personal experiences with party members to try and get them
to see the importance of the issue, along with the experiences of other
powerful Black men in positions of authority – his list included “Black heads
of police departments [pulled over] by their own departments!”
·
Interview
– Actress Gabrielle Union
o
Union
talked about the “nonstop onslaught of trauma” of always hearing news about yet
another Black person being murdered by the police – she admitted that she
wasn’t sure whether “depression” or “anxiety” were “big enough word[s]” to
encompass how that felt
o
She
went into her experiences on America’s
Got Talent a lot and the racism she was subjected to there – I really liked
what she said about people’s tendency of “going along to get along, trying to
figure out how to get around those bad apples” rather than actually confronting
their behavior and trying to do something about it
Wednesday, June 17
·
Headlines
– Aunt Jemima brand retired, new shortcut for phones to auto-record police
interactions, border dispute between China and India, Trump up in arms over
books by John Bolton and niece Mary Trump
o
Trevor
“poured one out” for Aunt Jemima (“Don’t worry, I put pancakes on the floor”)
o
Good
bit on racism being so insidious it’s even been a tool to sell breakfast food –
“Do you think Black people are less than human? Well, then you’re gonna love
these flapjacks!”
o
Trevor
liked the new phone shortcut but lamented its necessity – “It’s 30 years after
Rodney King, and basically the only thing that’s changed is the cameras are now
smarter?”
o
I
laughed at the impression of Trump creating buzz over Bolton’s book by trying
to block it – “No one should ever read these hot, sexy secrets! Especially on
page 32!” (Side note: Trevor’s Trump impression still kills me every time)
·
Montage:
Fox News guests raging about law and order in response to protests, intercut
with title cards about the crimes those guests have been convicted of
·
Coronavirus
– New cases in New Zealand and China, new studies on treatments/ways of
spreading, rising cases in the U.S.
o
Too
true – “It is crazy that 2 cases is being described as a major blow” for New
Zealand, compared to how the U.S. is reacting
o
Nice
analogy for Trump’s claim that “we would have very few cases” if we just
stopped testing for them – “The same way if Black people stop recording the
cops, we would have zero cases of police brutality”
o
I
loved the line, “Trump thinks of coronavirus as a PR issue and not a pandemic”
·
Interview
– Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David
o
David
described the recent Supreme Court victory protecting LGBTQ folks from
workplace discrimination as “a reaffirmation of the rule of law”
o
I
liked Trevor’s point about how laws protecting Black people (like the Civil
Rights Act) can then be expanded to include other marginalized groups, showing
why it’s important for different communities to support one another
·
Interview
– NFL player Matt Ryan
o
Ryan
was eager to do his part to promote racial justice, making sure to educate
himself as a white person on how to
do so – i.e., listening to his teammates saying that private/personal support
wasn’t enough, talking with Black community leaders in Atlanta about where
donations were most needed
o
Nice
observation from Trevor on the argument over whether politics belongs in sports
– “When politics can no longer be looked away from, sports often becomes the
platform for politics”
Thursday, June 18
·
Headlines
– The Supreme Court blocks Trump’s dissolution of DACA, John Bolton’s tell-all
book
o
And
for the latest installment of “Trump makes everything about him…” – “The
Supreme isn’t supposed to like you,
they’re supposed to like the Constitution!”
o
I
loved this description of John Bolton – “As Republican as an assault rifle
giving a lecture on trickledown economics”
o
Trevor
had a great reaction to the news that Trump thought Finland was part of Russia
(“sweet lord…”) – “I don’t expect much from Trump, but if he doesn’t even know
the white countries, what chance does Papua New Guinea have?”
·
Correspondent piece (Dulcé) – Juneteenth
o
As
Trevor said, no one was surprised by Trump’s claim that “no one around him”
knew about Juneteenth – “Mike Pence doesn’t even know what a cayenne pepper is.
You think he knows Black history?”
o
Dulcé
dropped plenty of knowledge in her segment, from why Texas was “Blacker than a
family reunion in Wakanda” in June of 1865 to the reminder that there were
slaves in the Union as well – “Imagine living in New Jersey and being a slave? That’s one Civil
Rights violation on top of another”
·
Interview
– Author/activist Kimberley Jones
o
Jones
and Trevor discussed her recent viral video during the protests, which was an
attempt to recenter a conversation that had quickly become more about looting
than protesting
o
She
emphasized that, while Black people being murdered by the police is obviously
horrific, another part of the conversation should be the “daily indignities at
the hands of the police” experienced in Black neighborhoods – “It’s like this
bully that lives in our community that no one else sees”
o
Looking
at Rayshard Brooks, Jones noted what it took for an officer to draw his gun
amid the current powder keg over police violence, “how much there is a lack of
concern for the Black form”
·
Interview
– Rapper/mogul LL Cool J
o
LL
Cool J is working to celebrate and uplift pioneers in hip-hop culture, the “Bob
Dylans” of the genre
o
Discussing
Black Lives Matter, he described the aims of the movement as “the first
principles of hip-hop,” bringing up classic artists like NWA
o
He
didn’t have any time for people trying to stay neutral right now to avoid
offense – “This is one of those moments where you gotta choose sides”
No comments:
Post a Comment